It may not come as much of a surprise that the Seattle Police Department’s year-end crime stats, released this week, show a slight rise in crime in 2009 when compared to 2008; back in December the FBI released national crime stats that uncovered the same upswing trend here in Seattle.
Based on SPD data, violent crimes went up 12 percent in 2009 from 2008, while property crimes rose 7 percent. Although this may seem like a significant increase, the FBI report comparing violent crimes in the first halves of both 2008 and 2009 in Seattle, indicated a much larger increase of 22 percent (I don’t know about you, but 12 percent seems like a relief compared!)
Though these numbers may be startling, to give some perspective, SPD also compared the 2009 stats to all of the final major crime numbers over the last decade. SPD wrote on their website,
One final note on the 2009 Major Crime trends is apparent when they are viewed not only in comparison with 2008, but also in light of the trends over a period of years. The table below presents a ten-year picture of Major Crimes in Seattle. In the last two rows, the ten-year average for each crime category is shown as well as the comparison of the 2009 figures to this average.
As the table demonstrates, the Major Crime totals for 2009 are below the ten-year averages in all crimes, except robbery.
So there you have it. Though the stats show assaults, larceny and burglary are also up compared to 2008, robbery is the only crime that has risen above average over the last ten years. Read more on recent and past SPD crime statistics here and here.